Category Archives: Innovation and Reform

Yesterday the Colorado State Board of Education was in deliberations to interview and consider one or more applicants for the state’s next education commissioner. Right now everything is in the hush-hush, so don’t even bother to ask me who any of the finalists are. Why? Because I don’t know. The new commissioner is scheduled to be appointed at the next monthly Board meeting (May 11 and 12). Whoever it ends up being, I hope the leader is a true education transformer, someone who would be at home fitting in with the 10 state education commissioners (having just doubled in size) who form the group “Chiefs for Change.” Have you heard about Chiefs for Change? It’s “a coalition of state school chiefs and leaders that share a zeal for education reform. Together, they provide a strong voice for bold reform on the federal, state and local level.”

When (or should I say if) I get older, maybe I’ll acquire a healthy dose of that battle-worn cynicism about highly-lauded education reform initiatives like Colorado’s Senate Bill 191 — also known as the “Great Teachers and Leaders” law. Sometimes I think I’m too young to adjust my expectations appropriately. But if someone as smart and experienced as Sandi Jacobs from the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) is upbeat but realistic about it, why shouldn’t little Eddie? Sandi Jacobs… You may be scratching your head, saying, “Where have I heard that name before?” My Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow has interviewed her for podcasts a few times before, most recently back in February for a discussion on “Upgrading Colorado Teacher Policies,” based on the latest edition of NCTQ’s State Teacher Policy Yearbook. Having spoken here in Denver Friday at a Donnell-Kay Foundation Hot Lunch event, Sandi also guest-blogged over at Education News Colorado:

The must-read, full-length education story of the week is a piece by Dana Goldstein at the American Prospect, titled “The Test Generation.” Before you think this little guy has gone completely loony tunes, you have to know a couple things: The article is all about Colorado, and mainly about the implementation of Senate Bill 191, but it opens with and focuses plenty of attention on the remarkable pioneering work of Harrison School District Two; and While I don’t agree with all the article’s points and conclusions, it’s a mostly fair assessment that provides some interesting insights into Colorado’s efforts to forge ahead on enhancing educator effectiveness. Showing the story’s release was timed well, earlier this week the co-chairs of the State Council on Educator Effectiveness presented their thick set of recommendations (PDF) to the State Board of Education for consideration. More thoughts on that to come in the near future. More interesting is Goldstein’s close look at Harrison superintendent Mike Miles, whose focused leadership in the development of a groundbreaking new teacher evaluation and pay system have unsurprisingly garnered criticism from the teachers union. Yet so far the results speak for themselves:

Last fall a story about a report on teacher pay reform made the front page of the Denver Post: “Offering teachers bonuses for student growth didn’t raise scores, study finds.” Yes, the front page. Back then I shared a fresh reaction with insights from national experts like Rick Hess concerning what the study actually did or did not say about the Nashville incentive pay experiment. Well, a conversation of that report in the context of teacher pay reform research shows up in a newly released issue paper from my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow, titled Pioneering Teacher Compensation Reform: K-12 Educator Pay Innovation in Colorado. The focus of the new paper is on Colorado’s significant number of local school districts and charter schools improving their teacher pay systems by moving rewards and incentives away from seniority toward measured performance. The star of the group? If I had to pick one, it definitely would be Harrison School District 2 for its Effectiveness and Results (E and R) program — currently in its first full year of operation. Harrison’s program definitely is not an MPINO (as coined by Stuart Buck and Jay Greene). It will be very interesting to see the […]

Matthew Ladner is right when he says: “This has been quite the week for parental choice in Arizona.” Of course, as my GoBash blogging friend noted, on Monday a 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court ruling upheld the state’s private school tax credit program — an important precedent. But Ladner’s statement comes from a posting primarily about an innovative proposal making its way through The Grand Canyon State’s legislature: Yesterday the Arizona Senate gave the final passage for SB 1553, Arizona Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, the nation’s first system of public contributions to education savings accounts as a choice mechanism, 21 to 7. Designed to replace Arizona’s special needs voucher program lost to our Blaine amendment, the ESA program will allow the parents of a child with a disability to withdraw their child from a public district or charter school, and receive a payment into an education savings account with restricted but multiple uses. Parents can then use their funds to pay for private school tuition, virtual education programs, private tutoring or saving for future college expenses. Could it really be “the way of the future” for school choice? If so, the future may be now. I have to give more thought to […]

Digital learning. It’s a big educational wave of the future… and of the present. The use of online technology in formal learning can take on so many forms that it’s difficult to imagine all the possibilities of what it could look like. As digital learning opportunities began to expand, we want to keep the focus on ensuring students and parents have access to a great variety of choices. But what about quality? It seems to be the education policy issue du jour. The New York Times’ Trip Gabriel shines light on the debate, but Flypaper’s Peter Meyer says the article “gets lost in the weeds” and should pay more attention to curriculum. New forms of delivering instruction and increasing learning shouldn’t lose focus on the content at hand. That’s where I stand with Harvard’s Paul Peterson, for example:

The good experts at Education Next have come forward with a potent one-two punch on teacher quality with a relevant message for Colorado policy makers, particularly in a time when tightened budgets weigh heavy on some minds. Are they listening? …. Part of the short-term solution to the K-12 budget situation is cutting unproductive spending in the form of rewards for teacher master degrees. Dr. Paul Peterson writes in Education Next, explaining how he and fellow researcher Matt Chingos have added one more proof to the gigantic pile of evidence that shows the ineffectiveness of “master’s bumps.” It’s past time to confront this reality that costs Colorado somewhere around $140 million per year. The second half of the one-two combination is a piece by Dr. Eric Hanushek, in which he quantifies the economic benefit of providing students with more effective teachers:

There are plenty of gag April’s Fools news stories floating out there this morning (my wishful-thinking favorite so far is Edspresso’s “Obama Administration Flips on School Vouchers”). But confusing as it may be, this story is legit: The same Falcon District 49 I lauded for taking a step towards more productive spending, the same district my Education Policy Center friends recently visited for an innovation meeting — yes, even the same Falcon that inspired me to write about the Cookie Monster — is behind this bizarre stunt. From this morning’s Colorado Springs Gazette: The keys [of all 84 district buses] were delivered Thursday morning to lawmakers by District 49 school board members and officials who drove to Denver in a 51-bus convoy — in rush hour traffic —to protest statewide budget cuts….

It’s Friday morning. I’m ready to go out and play, so not a lot to blog about today. But I just wanted to bring a couple of developments to your attention. What about Colorado’s neighbors to the east? Their legislators seem to be giving serious consideration to a couple different good, commonsense reform ideas: More than 3,000 parents, students and other supporters came out to show support for a private school tax credit scholarship bill in Nebraska’s unicameral legislature, LB50. After House Bill 2229 passed a key committee (H/T Intercepts), Kansas public school teachers are one step closer to being allowed to hear from unions and associations that don’t have monopoly bargaining privileges: you know, free choice and competition is good for teachers, too! Speaking of competition… Hey, Colorado, let’s not allow these other states to catch up or pass us when it comes to choice-based school reform. If we can’t beat them in football (Nebraska) or in basketball (Kansas), here’s one area where we all can win!

Hey there – YOU! I mean, hear ye, hear ye…. Colorado school and school district leaders, I wanted to share news of an upcoming online event that you may find very valuable as you seek to pursue academic excellence in these trying budget times. Education Week is hosting a webinar next Wednesday, March 30, from 11 AM to noon Mountain Daylight Time: What are the 10 Elements of High-Quality Digital Learning that should be top of mind for everyone involved in education, from lawmakers to administrators to teachers and parents? How can your district or school harness these elements to develop an affordable, high-quality digital learning environment that engages students, parents and teachers? What have your peers learned from their own experiences with digital learning – and how can you use their insights to drive your success?